Adding a Logitech VX Nano to my wife’s MacBook

I really love the trackpad on my MacBook Pro and finally got to the point where I stopped using my Logitech Mx510 mouse with it. While the trackpad doesn’t give me the control that a mouse does—especially when doing fine point adjustments in an image editor—I found myself quite comfortable just using the trackpad nearly all the time.

My wife however will be a different story. Her birthday is Monday and I’ve pretty much put the finishing touches on the MacBook I got her. I know however that she hates trackpads and since she’s already going through enough of a change from Windows to Mac I figured I would get her a decent wireless mouse to help ease the transition.

I had a couple of people on this blog mention the Logitech VX Nano as a great little mouse and decided to give that a try. Though what I really wanted was a Bluetooth based solution I heard several reports of the Bluetooth mice having interference issues and as a result not being smooth all the time.

Wireless mice are not something I’m fond of when used with a laptop. I love the concept of no wires, it’s just that virtually every wireless mouse requires a USB based receiver “dongle” to be inserted into the machine in order to make it work. This is the reason I liked Bluetooth based devices, since my Macs already have a Bluetooth device built in.

Having that receiver stuck into the side of a MacBook just looks obnoxious; it appears to me like a miniature diving board or a MacBook that is really excited to see you. This is where the Logitech VX Nano is different. The VX Nano came with a transmitter that is incredibly small, basically the size of a nickel.When plugged into the side of my wife’s MacBook it only projects a very small amount:

The mouse itself is excellent. I’ve always been a fan of Logitech mice and the VX Nano is a good example of why. It has a really slippery smooth surface on the bottom and glides over my desktop effortlessly. The primary buttons have a good solid feel to them. The roller ball is fantastic; it has nearly zero resistance and feels like a well oiled ball bearing. Spin it and let go and you’ll scroll for a very long time. It can also pan right and left which is great for really wide web pages and images. There is a button below the scroll wheel that can be customized and set to pretty much anything. I set it to activate Spaces, something I hope my wife takes to.

The only thing I don’t care for are the two buttons that would traditionally map to Forward and Backward on a web browser. If you look at the picture at the top of the screen they are placed just to the left of the primary mouse button. In my quick playing around with the mouse I found those to be harder to hit than something triggered by my thumb along the left edge of the mouse.

The size of the VX Nano is a bit on the small side. It’s not one of those minuature laptop mice but runs about 2/3 the size of a normal Logitech mouse. I personally prefer larger mice because I tend to rest my hand on them while using them but I found this one pretty comfortable in my limited testing. My wife has very small hands so it should be perfect for her.

The software is an update to the Logitech driver. I’ve had miserable luck with the Logitech drivers in the past but decided to give this one a try. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it given my poor experience in the past but it does give me some nice control for the device, allowing me to remap any of the buttons and fine tune scrolling and click rates.

I’m going to be giving all this to Allison on Monday which is her actual birthday. I’m a little anxious to see how she takes to all of this.